Tandahimba

The funny thing about this trip so far is the amount of time I’ve spent in each place relative to the total amount of time I’ve been out of the US. So far, I’ve spent 4 days in Addis Ababa, 5 days in Dar es Salaam, 3 days in Mtwara, and 1 day in Tandahimba. I’ll be in Mtwara for another 4 days, then I’m going back to Dar es Salaam for a couple days, then back to Addis. So despite the fact that I’ve been in Africa for close to 2 weeks now, I don’t really feel like I’ve gotten a good enough feel for any of the places I’ve been to comment on them with great detail or insight.

However, that doesn’t mean I won’t try, even if the final product is lacking in detail and insight. Heck, I can’t even supply those things about places I’ve lived for years! Since I’m going to spend a lot more time in Addis, I think I’ll leave the description of that city for a time when I’m more learned in the details of it. As of now, I’ve only once ventured more than 1 block from our house; my experiences have included purchasing coffee and food, and not much more.

I wrote this large paragraph which basically said the following: Latin America and Africa are, for all intents and purposes, the same. After today, I think I need to take back that statement. It actually would have been fairly simple to have never admitted I said it, but I think the similarities and dissimilarities are enough to warrant commentary. Yesterday, I thought that the people, landscape, economy, etc, were all very similar. And then I spent a day in Tandahimba.

We were told that Tandahimba means, in some kind of translation of a translation, “Demon Lion.” This is partly due to the fact that apparently there are lions in the area, and partly due to some other facts which I was unable to ascertain. Upon hearing this, I knew that Latin America and Africa are not the same. While it is somewhat common in Africa (relatively speaking) to be eaten by a lion, this is largely impossible in Latin America. I also experienced something that I’ve never even come close to experiencing in Latin America, which is this: little kids have only seen a couple of white people in their entire lives. In fact, we spent much of last evening’s dinner and this morning’s breakfast making and breaking eye contact with small Tandahimban children who would look us in the eye, scream and run away, and then repeat the process. It didn’t make me feel bad, but it did make me feel a little bit weird.

Now it’s 8:05pm and I’m working back at the CHAI Mtwara house – when you live with your coworkers, it’s kind of hard to draw a visible line between work and non-work time. We generally end up working kind of inefficiently from 9 to 9, which is kind of funny given that our group’s job is to help other people run their operations more efficiently.

ANYWAY, I’m still enjoying Africa very much – it’s been nearly 2 weeks and was most definitely expecting to have experienced some serious traveler’s health problems by now, so the lack thereof makes me feel as though I’m doing as well as I could have hoped. I’ve met some of the most genuinely nice people of all time and seen some of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. All in all, the past 2 weeks has been the experience of a lifetime, and I’m thrilled that I get to have another 3.5 months of it.